The Girl in the Book is a 2015 American drama film, directed by Marya Cohn, and stars Emily VanCamp as Alice Harvey, a literary assistant editor, that is constantly harassed by an old writer, Milan Daneker, portrayed by Michael Nyqvist, with whom she had a brief, but turbulent illicit relationship, as she was under age when the two got involved.  

Alice is a competent, but very unhappy woman, that fulfills her empty life with alcohol, and a succession of afflictive and regretful one night stands. When her senior editor asks her to take charge of a new edition of the book Waking Eyes, by author Milan Daneker, her life suddenly becomes more inhospitable and chaotic. Trough flashbacks, we learn that her parents were literary agents, and her father was the sole responsible for the successful bestselling career of author Milan Daneker. From then on, the story is intertwined with present day events, and recurrent flashbacks, upon which we understand that Alice, in her teenage years, being always surrounded by writers and intellectuals, developed very early her own writing skills, and started to nurture the possibility of a literary career. When the soon-to-be-notorious author Milan Daneker is introduced to the young Alice, he is instantly attracted to her, and using literature as a pretext, he tells her that he wishes to read her manuscripts, but in fact he is looking for an excuse to get close to her. Becoming a literary mentor to the young Alice, both soon began a teacher and pupil relationship, seeing each other almost every day. Daneker starts to give literary advices to the young Alice, and not long after that, he starts abusing her physically, turning her mind into a whole new set of confused feelings. After some encounters, Alice tells everything to her parents, that confronts Daneker. Giving a sordid excuse, he dismisses all that she told them as a lie, saying that she is probably too impressed with him, a much older and fascinating man. When her parents choose not to believe her, Alice becomes very distressed and traumatized. 

In the present day, Alice fights hard to endure the difficulties presented by having Daneker one more time in her life. Being forced to meet him several times by virtue of the book’s rereleasing process, she has no other choice, but to confront demons of the past and scars of the present. Being somewhat thoughtful, and always addressing her properly, showing a decent degree of affection towards her, Daneker’s attitudes sets Alice into a downward spiral of emotional trauma and turmoil, not knowing exactly how to react to his advances, as he acts as if nothing bad had happened in the past. Not being able to deal with the situation properly, her relationship with friends and family are deeply affected by her desperation, and everything in her life starts to fall apart. Going through hard times, when she is finally stable enough to have a decent and constant relationship, on one particular occasion, she becomes so distressed with her current confrontation with ghosts from the past, that she cheats her boyfriend, finding difficult to resist to her old habit of engaging on empty and painful one night stands, as a form of temporary relief for her grief. 

Through another flashback, we learn that Milan Daneker not just abused her, but plagiarized her literary works as well, incorporating some of her texts into his most famous novel, Waking Eyes. When Milan Daneker gives his first reading session to a crowd in a bookshop, she becomes terrifyingly disturbed when she listens her own work in his book, being excruciatingly hurt by his lack of ethics and morals, struck hard by the brutal feeling of having her own words painfully stolen. More shocking indeed, comes the fact that Alice was incorporated as a character in the book, hence the title of the movie, The Girl in the Book. 

In the present day, when Alice’s boyfriend finally forgives her for cheating him, Alice decides to take her life back on track, and the only way she finds appropriate for doing this is finally confronting Milan Daneker. One day, when she comes to his house, she clarifies everything that was disturbing her, and spits it out on his face all the wrongdoings that he did to her in the past, finally being able to set herself free from his invisible chains, severing ties with Daneker for good. The audience also learns that Daneker was possibly a mediocre author and a literary fraud all the time, lacking real talent as a writer, as the books that he published after Waking Eyes were all commercial failures. The success of his most famous novel was probably all inspired by Alice herself, as a character, and also by her plagiarized text. In the end, her boyfriend gives her a hug, and, coming up with the correct conclusion, finally understands what she has been going through, saying “You’re the girl in the book”, to which she replies “not anymore”. 

Well, The Girl in the Book, although it is a little slow sometimes, is a great and terrific movie. The intense drama, and the high sensibility of the characters – especially Alice, the main character – are developed really well all the way through, and the audience does not get tired of the story in any moment, as the plot unfolds in a very interesting and dramatic manner. The bridges built by the characters’ emotions towards one another, and the fact that all of their feelings are perfectly interconnected by a major link of profound humanity is also a major achievement of the movie, giving to all individuals a deep sense of real life drama, sense of morality (or in some cases lack of it), perception and failure, and a drastic element of individual sensibility towards life.

The partial linearity of the story, always featuring the constant interchangeable connection of the present day with the flashbacks can be tiresome at times, as you may easily lose your patience with so many roads going back. Nonetheless, this artifice serves very well to the plot, as you can accompany Alice’s journey through her ordeals in life without hard waste.  

Although The Girl in the Book is really a very good movie, you will had, inevitably, several times throughout the story, the feeling that you have seen this same exact plot in a lot of other movies, a hundred times before. A little exhausting and obvious in some points, The Girl in the Book is a good movie, that escapes the drama clichés easily, with a little degree of originality. Nevertheless, you will have that sensation in some moments that the movie seems exactly like another chapter of the boring and old soap opera that you used to see with your grandmother, when you were a teenager. It is a good movie, but it is far from being great. Although it is compelling, dramatic and profound, at some point you realize that this is just another movie that complies with the regular standards of the genre, showing a decent level of technical proficiency, which is no hard task for the most professional companies of the movie industry. But the picture per se will hardly achieve a remarkable score in the personal evaluation of anyone that chooses to see it, since it is filled with a lot of the sticky elements that fulfills the plot of a large amount of boring and ridiculous afternoon TV shows. Okay, here, it is portrayed in a much more decent manner, with a high level of  competent skills, but anyway, in the end, all the good story flows in a common ground floor, giving you the impression that you are watching a very predictable and lengthy melodrama, hardly worthwhile remembering it. Regardless, it is a good and very well done drama movie, that unfortunately fails to be more than that. My rate for The Girl in the Book is three and a half stars.        


Wagner              

Anatomy of a Love Seen is an American drama film, starring Sharon Hinnendael and Jill Evyn. Written and directed by Marina Rice Bader, which also star in the movie, the plot deals with two lesbian actresses that reunite for a day, to reshoot sensual love scenes for a movie on which both starred some months earlier, after they had a brief, but intense relationship, having split recently in a very unfriendly manner.

Zoe Peterson (Sharon Hinnendael) and Mal Ford (Jill Evyn) met while working on a movie. In the movie, both play lesbian girls, that have a very torrid love affair, and shoot together very ardent and passionate love scenes in the bed. Nonetheless, both women are actually lesbians, and fall in love for each other while shooting their love scenes for the film. After the movie is finished, they begin a love affair, that abruptly ends after a few months, when Mal dumps Zoe for no apparent reason. Several months later, both are called again to do a reshoot of the love scene, and both actresses find very hard to endure the ordeal to meet each other again, after their horrendous breakup.

To deal with the situation, they have the movie director, Kara Voss (Marina Rice Bader) committed to help them, doing her best, trying to hold on the emotional turmoil that slowly begins to develop in the movie set. When soon became obvious that their meeting will be a very difficult one, Kara enlists the help of her assistant, Anne (Constance Brenneman), another very emotional woman, that tries to do everything in her power to deal with the situation in the best way possible. Kara even arranges for Zoe to have her own space on set, so she can deal with this stressful situation in an easy way. 

For Zoe and Mal, seeing each other one more time is a very hurtful process. Nonetheless, for the sake of the movie, they have to reshoot the love scene they had done together a few months prior, but the two women don’t seem capable to solve their differences, nor put their problems behind them for good. When the situation appears to cool off for some moments, horrible arguments and heated discussions reopens striking emotional turbulences, and Zoe and Mal find a hard time trying to understand each other, which provides a lot of setbacks and troubles for the movie crew and the shooting schedule. 

Despite the best efforts set up by Kara and Anne, Zoe and Mal discussions just get worse, and the two women seems incapable to forgive or understand each other. When they finally go to bed, and the shooting gives sign that may finally happen, both women, doing their best to appease themselves, and achieve a peaceful atmosphere of serenity for the sake of the movie, after a calm and easy interaction – that finally provides at least one good scene – had another severe falling out, and for a moment, everything seems definitely ruined.  

As the discussion between them progresses, we learn that Mal was a recovering addict when both women had a relationship. Insecure and afraid that Zoe could leave her, Mal broke up with Zoe before Zoe had the chance to break up with her. Resented and heartbroken, Zoe underwent a very difficult period on her life after the relationship ended, and now she finds hard to forgive Mal for what she had done. Acting as mediators, and trying to be bridges that communicate feelings of comprehension and reconciliation between the women, Kara and Anne do everything they can to provide for Zoe and Mal the possibility to achieve a platform of mutual understanding, which proves something very hard to realize.   

Obvious as it is, the emotional setbacks just gets worse, and Anne, a very frail woman, begins to be severely affected by the sentimental turmoil of the situation. As Kara tries to calm Zoe, Anne gets closer to Mal. Rigorously shaken by the difficulties of the situation, Anne confides to Mal that she have a lot of professional ambitions, but everybody appears to treat her as if she was invisible, and she doesn’t feel properly appreciated by anyone. Revealing to Mal that she wants to direct a movie with Kara, Anne displays a great fear of rejection, saying that she is afraid to ask Kara for a movie partnership. Sensitive to Anne’s insecurities, Mal deeply comforts Anne, listing the incredible and beautiful qualities of Anne’s personality, making her intensely emotional.  

After so much difficult and antagonistic situations, and seeing no better prospects for the trouble in question, Kara finally confesses to Zoe, Mal and Anne that a reshooting of the love scene was not necessary at all. She arranged the situation all by herself, in order to reunite Zoe and Mal, to finally give both women a chance to reconcile, heal their love and come back to each other. Shocked upon hearing this, the three women becomes deeply disturbed, and Zoe and Mal leave the set in their separate ways, both very distressed and deeply resented. Terrified by the revelation, Anne uses the moment to disclose all of her personal anxieties to Kara. As Kara listens to all of Anne’s afflictions, she comforts her by saying how much she is necessary and meaningful, and how deeply she appreciates everything Anne does. When all of her worries are finally relieved, Anne smiles, and kisses Kara in the mouth, upon which we learn that both Kara and Anne are probably undergoing a very similar situation to Zoe and Mal, although without going to severe detrimental extremes.

As the movie approaches the end, we see Mal coming up for Zoe, after seeing her seated in a street, next to a car. Both women look deeply at each other’s eyes, and suddenly, instead of the movie finishing with the typical “The End”, appears the sentence “The Beginning” onscreen, and subsequent scenes shows that both women have reconciled, and gave to each other another chance for their relationship. And from this point on, both women do very naturally in their real life the love scenes they had found difficult to follow for the reshoot procedure of the movie. 

Well, this movie is a very unconventional one, in almost every way possible. The entire film revolves around a movie set, with two women – the director and her assistant – trying to resolve the drama that involves the two main actresses. Surprisingly, the movie has a real and very expansive life of its own. With the obvious potential to be a boring movie, the drama and the intensity brought on to the screen with the great acting of the four main actresses is a very enthusiastic one, and the drama energy created by the characters of      Zoe Peterson and Mal Ford resulted in great remarkable performances, with the incredible potential to hold your attention for the whole movie. Despite all performances being astonishingly great, deeply artistic and superbly well driven, the character of Zoe Peterson, played by Sharon Hinnendael, outshines herself over the others. Zoe, being hurt by Mal with the breakup of the relationship, carry on her eyes all the painful drama that outstands and reverberates her grief for being rejected, and, as a result, Sharon Hinnendael gives a very convincing performance as a woman severely hurt by an insecure partner. Her eyes are drowning in grief all the time, even when she tries not to appear sad, and her profound, yet smooth facial expressions easily shows the tragedy of a heart broken as well as the sensitive nature of sorrow and disappointment in the human heart. Her subtle facial expressions create amazing dramatic devices even in soft moments, as she is able to drive her character’s presence throughout the hardest scenes of the movie only with her indefinite exhilarating eyes. Nonetheless, all the four main actresses are a great team that drives by the force of their acting abilities a simple, but well designed and perfectly arranged drama, whose final result impersonates a story brilliantly conceived, and amazingly told, settled  in the very uneventful journey of the scars of unresolved love.      

On the other hand, the direction, although it is not brilliant, it is also surprisingly well driven. One of the greatest pleasures of the movie is seeing the director (Marina Rice Bader) playing a director in her own movie! Despite the amazing performances, the good direction, and the fact that the movie is short (only 80 minutes long, which makes the story goes direct to the point), sometimes you get tired of being in a movie set all the way through. With very little exceptions, an entire movie set indoors is a little upsetting, and sometimes you feel the plot not going anywhere, as you get the impression that the movie is sometimes motionless, and lacking cinematic dynamic. The final plot device – the fact that Kara, the director, arranged the reshoot just as an excuse to give the women an opportunity of reconciliation, and a chance for them to go back to each other – also seems a little exaggerated, pushing too hard the boundaries of an acceptable and realistic plotline.    

Nonetheless, Anatomy of a Love Seen is a very good movie, that will hardly disappoint or dissatisfy its audience. Surprisingly well driven, filled with the sentimental bridges that extracts humanity from the characters, as well as the audience, in all of their senses, and identifying all the potential sensibilities that build human interactions, while also analyzing the stronger values of love itself, this interesting film manages to be above the average score of the genre, for a movie in this category, and certainly deserves three and half stars for its outstanding final result.     
       

Wagner

Charlie’s Farm is a 2014 Australian horror film, starring American actress Tara Reid. It concerns a group of four friends that decides to go out on a trip, to investigate an isolated farm, on which supposedly lives Charlie, the violent and ferocious cannibalistic killer, that grew all by himself in the vast desolation of the completely abandoned farm – that belonged to his parents –, after they were killed by locals, who discovered their vicious and sadistic rampage of kidnapping, murdering and cannibalizing innocent farm laborers. Assuming this to be folklore, and all part of a local legend, thinking little of it to be true, despite being warned, the four friends decide to spend a couple of days in the abandoned farm, only to be victimized by the atrocious and violent murderer. 

This is a movie with as much as positive as well as much as negative aspects, although the positive ones, somewhat, in the end, seems able to overcome its overall misdemeanors. One of its major problems is the pace of the movie, being incredibly slow. Only after forty minutes the group finally arrives at their destination, and the horror begins at one hour of movie. And when it begins, the excessive and explicit amount of violence it ensues is far too heavy to tolerate, even for a horror movie. Nonetheless, the movie has its remarkable features, like a cohesive and realistic plot, believable background elements, coherent unfolding of the events, well-structured story and good acting, to say the least, which makes it very difficult to evaluate, being so good, and so bad, at the same time. 

Well, the movie is watchable, that is for sure. If you feel patient, and really appreciates a story being told in a very calm, slow manner, with no hurry, and don’t mind turning your head a little bit when the blood (and skull fragments, and many other body parts) starts to spill, you will like this movie. It is remarkably well done, has the 3 C’s (Cohesion, Coherence and Consistence), which is vital for a good plot, and, unlike many other horror movies, comes with a somewhat painstaking degree of audacity, since none of the characters survives the horrible ordeal, which is a rare feature, very hard to find in horror movies these days.

Yes, definitely this movie has it all to be a good entertainment, since – by a very thin margin – its positive points, in a certain way, can redeem a little its flaws. It’s a very nice horror piece, with potential to become, one day, a cult classic. Definitely, it deserves three and a half stars, out of five.             


​Wagner

Martyrs is a 2016 American horror film, which is a remake of the 2008 French Canadian movie of the same name. Directed by Kevin and Michael Goetz, it stars Troian Bellisario and Bailey Noble, as two girls unveiling a dark conspiracy by a group of people who kidnaped young children, to torture them, and study their capacities to endure pain and distress, to see which one had potential to become a martyr. 

Lucie (Bellisario) and Ann (Noble) become childhood friends in the orphanage  on which both live. Ann, upon noticing how lonely Lucie was, take the girl upon her wings, and they develop a strong friendship, learning deeply to rely on each other. Soon, Lucie is adopted, and when she finally believes that her life will take a change for the better, the very opposite is what really waits for her.

Years pass, and when Lucie is a grown up woman, she decides to take revenge on her entire surrogate family. One day, she finally storms in with a gun, and kill everybody in the house on which she used to live. After the killing, she calls Ann, to tell her what she did, and to help her in hiding the bodies and the evidences at the crime scene. Claiming that she was abused for years, Lucie finally reveals the fragile side of her personality, and confides to Ann all the horrendous things that she had to endure while living imprisoned with her abusive family. 

Initially dismissing all of the things that Lucie tells her as being paranoia, or symptoms of mental instability, soon the two girls are trapped by what appears to be members of a mysterious group, fronted by an old woman that shows an obscure interest in Lucie, although she don’t reveal at first what her intentions are. When both girls are trapped in the house, locked in separate cells in a dark basement, Ann begins to realize that all of the things that Lucy told her are possibly true. 

When Lucie and the mysterious woman finally got the chance to be alone, you finally discover that an obscure and horrendous organization is torturing individuals since their childhoods, to select the stronger ones, and determine which one has the potential to become a martyr. They submit their experiments to physical and psychological pain, and make they go through hard traumas, to specially observe the most resistant ones. And this is why Lucie is so special to the organization, since she bravely endured the harder tests inflicted upon her, although not without extremely psychological consequences.

When Ann manages to escape her confinement, she notices other iron cages, and in one of them, she sees one little girl, that she decides to rescue. In a dramatic downturn of events, Lucie is finally able to transcend who she really is, and finally get her revenge on the people that inflicted on her the most abhorrent time of her life. 
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While not particularly an excellent movie, Martyrs do have some interesting concepts! The visuals, the acting, the rhythm of the story, and all technical elements that make a good movie, in fact, are all there! The movie is not boring or dull, and the awkward situations, as well as an intriguing plot, compels you to pay attention to the whole story, as the movie has the ability to entice your curiosity, to see it to the very end. The movie have a decent, colorful drama, serving as a coherent background, and Troian Bellisario, who portrays Lucie, gives to the movie a very interesting element, portraying a troubled and traumatized character, with a profound sense of realistic characterization, and great degree of vigorous and abnormal instinct of survival. The relationship of the two girls as two best friends since childhood, with a deep bond, is also a remarkable feature of the movie, with an intensity and a sense of completeness that really fuels the dramatic tones of the story.   

While the movie have its merits, there’s nothing on it that you haven’t seen in a hundred movies before. Although it is not just a generic, formulaic drama driven horror movie, you will hardly be impressed with its artistic achievements. The movie is a great one hour and a half entertainment, but doesn’t go beyond that. As soon as the movie finishes, you will forget entirely what you have seen. Nonetheless, it is a very well done more of the same, and certainly deserves a three and a half stars.         


Wagner

The Pack is a 2015 Australian thriller film, directed by Nick Robertson, that concerns a man and his family, suddenly trapped one night by a violent and dangerous pack of wild forest dogs, having no other option than fight intensely, to have a minimum chance of survival. 


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The movie begins when farmer Adam Wilson (portrayed by Jack Campbell) discovers an almost entire flock of sheep has been viciously annihilated by what appears to be a wild animal. Having serious debts, after their farm has been generating less and less income for the past six months, the problems become increasingly hard, soon after their creditor appears, to collect the debt, or relocate them by force. 

After expelling the man from their home, the first aggressions begins, being the creditor the first victim of the attacks, turning himself into an easy prey, when stopping by an isolated road, to urinate. Soon after, when the wild dogs surround the farm in its entire location, the animals organize a massive attack against the family, which becomes isolated in their own house. After more and more wild dogs appear, the family members have to unite themselves as a team, to do their best effort to fight hard and survive.

Despite some overall flaws, and the simple plot, this movie is very good, and reunites all the elements and components that make a good thriller. Tension, survivalist expectancy, fear and anguish are all there, despite being a little slow in its darkness, and getting the viewer tired at certain times, when the movie becomes frozen in its own plot, appearing to be its own demise, in some tedious sequences that hardly escape the obvious.

Nonetheless, if you have a little patience, you will see how good this movie is. Product of a professional team, great cinematography, excellent photography, believable and credible acting, a decent and coherent plot, realistic moments and plausible situations that could happen in real life, are all elements reasonably combined well, which makes The Pack a good film. You may not be impressed at all with this movie, but you can see for yourself that it has, indeed, very strong points in its favor. Which is good, in a genre with mostly disappointing results.  

Despite the positive result, it becomes impossible to give this movie a great score, since, by the other hand, it isn’t able to overcome its flaws. Being trapped in its own atmosphere of a predictable conclusion, with little more to offer, you will be bored, and wishing not to see the movie until the end, at certain moments. Conclusively, The Pack is a good movie, but just another good movie. You will have fun, but will forget about it, one minute after it is finished. But for its competent team and compelling devices, deserves a score of three and half stars.    


​Wagner            

Lord of Tears is a 2013 Scottish horror film, starring Euan Douglas and David Schofield, concerning a man that returns to the house of his childhood, to clarify the mysterious view of the Owlman, a vision he has seen, since his youth. The beginning of the movie is frightening, with the very first glimpse of the desolate view from the melancholic Scottish countryside, in a movie that relies entirely on psychological horror.     

The desolation, the coldness and the grey numbness of the Scottish countryside is a perfect place for horror, and the pale, isolated mansion, seemingly deteriorated, to which the central character goes to unfold the dark circumstances surrounding his life is even scarier, although inside the mansion is beautifully organized, with a well-designed, antique furniture, and a beautiful housekeeper, that receives very-well the central character.

Despite the intriguing premise, and the dark, mysterious atmosphere of the movie, that’s when things start to go wrong. The slow pace of the movie, although may bother you sometimes, it’s not the worst part at all. The terrible acting, as well as nonsense moments, – like dance and pool scenes, with a catchy 80’s style  floppy pop soundtrack –, and deliberately repetitive camera movements that try to capture an “impression of rapture” from the character’s point of view, will simply make you feel ashamed of watching this movie. And yes, does have the pretension to be a serious movie.     

With the story unfolding weakly, in a tedious and dull style, the bad acting – especially from the two main characters –, will simply make you feel numb. Scotland, like most countries, and unlike the United States, doesn’t have a movie industry, so most films, being independent and made entirely on a low – sometimes indecent – budget (this one partially funded through a kickstarter campaign) does employ amateur actors to fulfill its needs, as it is cheaper, and, as a result, sometimes you can get a little disturbed by the bad – or, in this case, terrible – acting, in a movie whose plot otherwise could have been a little promising. But the acting is creepy, and the intended deliberately happy scenes have a bizarre effect, but not a good one, certainly not achieving from the audience the intended emotion, which, I suppose, from a horror film, could have been tension and fear, but this will make you feel uneasy or impatient, and possibly will make you laugh from the unintended comic effects at a certain point.

Surprisingly, movie critics loved this flop. Since movie critics don’t understand absolutely anything about movies, it’s easy to see why this one matches their taste so overwhelmingly. I give to it no stars at all. This movie deserves a negative score, for its astounding mediocrity.   


​Wagner

Ammar Cin Tarikatı (or simply Ammar) is a 2015 Turkish horror film, that concerns a group of friends, that decides to spend a holiday in a distant house, in the countryside. When finally arriving there, dreadful and mysterious circumstances starts to happen, for the distress of the group. Despite the cliché premise of the beginning, you will find interesting the unusual and somewhat very well-mannered slow pace of the plot, that keeps the light of the mystery burning. But when time flows, and absolutely nothing happens, you start to feel tired.

The film per se it’s not bad at all, although you will not find in it something that you haven’t seen a thousand times before. But when almost all movie passes by you, with nothing interesting or relevant happening, you start thinking you’ve wasted your time. That’s the feeling the movie will give you, after thirty minutes. And some minutes later, you will feel even more bored.

The movie revolves around the Djinn creatures of Islamic mythology, and the implications their actions have, when they interact with humans. Although it is not a great movie, it is not mediocre either: if you struggle enough to watch to the end, you will be rewarded with a somewhat interesting ending, entwined in a curious plot twist, as the movie will not be as obvious as the plot would indirectly suggest you to think it is, and an intelligent conclusion will surprise you – at least a little – and make you think twice, when evaluating the movie, giving it the credits it deserves. 

It can be a very good movie if you watch it with the correct amount of patience, analyzing piece by piece its slow unwind of events, not creating great expectations about the history as a whole, although its conclusion can redeem its flaws, for its purpose seems somewhat credible and realistic, in the context in which it is happening.

It is not a bad movie, despite the overall cliché plotline, and the lack of a major central event. But we have to give credits to its production, tough: the movie in general is well done, the history has no major flaws, the actors and actresses involved are convincing. But don’t expect much more than that. In the end, your only consolation will be thinking that there are horror movies a lot worse than this. 

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Wagner

Robert (or Robert The Doll) is a 2015 British horror film, directed by Andrew Jones, starring Suzie Frances Garton and Lee Bane. The movie concerns the Otto family, who is cursed when a possessed doll is given to them, by their former housemaid, after she is fired from working in the house. 

When Agatha, the old housemaid is not able anymore to do a decent job in the Otto residence, Jennifer Otto fires her. As a form of vengeance, she gives to her son Eugene a very sinister doll, called Robert. Upon acceptance of the gift, strange occurrences starts happening in the family residence, and Jennifer rapidly becomes suspicious of the awkward macabre doll. Because of her history of mental illness, Paul, her husband, do not accept her explanations pointing the doll as the culprit for the heinous things that has been happening. Things become increasingly severe when she realizes the doll talks to her little son, Eugene.

Things start getting a dark tone, when a new housemaid is pushed from the stairs, falling and seriously injuring herself one day, and when the babysitter of Eugene is mysteriously killed, when the couple decides to leave one night, for a romantic dinner. Nonetheless, all explanations given to Paul by Jennifer are dismissed as symptoms of her psychiatric condition, and she is not taken seriously. When she decides to investigate the story, she prepares herself to confront Agatha, her former housemaid, responsible for the curse, only to discover that she recently has died. Nonetheless, she ends up meeting a couple who was also terrorized by the cursed doll in the past, and they tell new astonishing revelations to her, being one of them the fact that Agatha was involved in dark magic.

Despite the similar Child’s Play franchise premise, the movie is in fact based in a real life supposedly cursed doll named Robert, who belonged to a painter and author named Robert Eugene Otto, that is now exhibited in the East Martello Museum, in Key West, Florida. Both the real life doll and the movie doll are dressed in a sailor uniform. Nonetheless, the movie is entirely fictitious, with a story loosely based in the actual doll. 

Remarkably, Robert is a surprisingly good movie. Sometimes, falls in the error of becoming more like a family melodrama than an horror film, but still, it is worthwhile watching it. The acting is very professional, dramatic, desperate and filled with anguish, and the difficulties the family has to endure that are all caused by the doll are able to intrigue and captivate the attention of its audience. The drama that Jennifer Otto has to fight to make her husband believe in herself is convincingly credible and heart-breaking. Despite very little horror scenes, tension in the movie is well done, constructed carefully, under a thin layer of anxiety, fear and expectation. The only problem in the movie is the aggression scenes involving the doll. Because of the obvious low-budget of the movie, those scenes are rare, and the little you can actually see is almost always very subjective, since they probably couldn’t afford a special effects team to make scenes of the actual doll moving itself along, to make the horrendous things that a cursed doll is supposed to do.   

Well, while this movie will certainly not change your life, it is remarkably well done for a doll movie with a low budget, since it relies more on a good, decent, cohesive and well-structured plot and in the abilities of the actors involved, than aggressive blood and gore scenes, and special effects, something I think Hollywood should learn from, doing the very opposite thing for a long time now. I think that filmmakers working outside the Hollywood industry don’t have any other options, besides being intelligent. They don’t have other choices than being smart to solve with good ideas the problems inherent to a low budget. Hollywood, on the other hand, don’t have to be smart or intelligent. They have money, after all!

Well, this movie certainly falls in the very good three stars and a half category. If you like a good horror movie, you will certainly enjoy Robert, the cursed doll!        


​Wagner

Knock Knock is a 2015 Chilean-American co-production, starring Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas e Lorenza Izzo, directed by horror pioneer Eli Roth. Although categorized as a thriller film, defining this movie becomes quite hard, specially taking into consideration the fact that it begins very well, and ends up being more like a deadly college prank, than a serious piece, after all.  

The movie tells the story of a night in the life of Evan Webber (Reeves), a husband, father of two, and accomplished architect, that, staying alone for the weekend, suddenly has, at a certain rainy night, two girls knocking on his door, telling him that they got lost, while looking for the address of a party. Soaked by the rain, and virtually lost, Evan wants to help them both, and let the girls enter his house, but this will turn out as the biggest mistake of his life. 

While appearing to be nice and friendly, the two girls, little by little, become more vicious, dangerous, abusive and sexually aggressive, and after seducing Evan, have a threesome. After that, things become really bad, in the worst way possible, as the pair of female assailants gets brutal, violent and increasingly irrational.

While the premise of the movie is really interesting, the movie becomes progressively tedious, tenaciously dull and inherently obvious, especially when it comes to the girls, as the movie progresses, that reveals themselves to be just two bored females, looking for fun at the cost of easily seducing middle aged and successful married men, just for the sake of playing a psychotic game. 

As the story unfolds, the movie becomes more and more pointless and seemingly random, especially when, towards the end, nothing unusual or really clever happens, and the plot follows just another conventional linear narrative arc, with a simpleton objective, with nothing more to offer, being a great disappointment, after all, creating expectations that not fulfill the audience, in any way. 

The movie is bizarre, for the fact that, starting with a naïve, but very intriguing promising story, turns out being just another simple and mischievous common place. The mediocre, boring, conventional – and absolutely obvious – ending, with no twist, nor smart turn of events, leaves the viewer disappointed and sad, with that sensation of time lost, for nothing after all. In the end, it is just another story, in a very conventional movie. A simple product, just another delivery from the movie industry. 

Another severe problem in the movie is Keanu Reeves choice for the main role. He is not convincing as a husband and a father. Perhaps for the reason that we do not see him take this kind of role frequently (never, so to speak), and perhaps for the fact that he has not taken – ever – neither roles in real life. For these reasons, it is quite hard to see him in this kind of role, and his acting simply doesn’t buy credibility – “chocolate with sprinkles” – nor it is convincing enough, to help us believe his character. It turns out to be comic – and voraciously funny – at certain parts.

Eli Roth is a great director, that is for sure. While this movie will not damage his reputation, will bring nothing to it, either, absolutely. Unfortunately, Knock Knock turns out to be a great sum of talents, wasted in a worthless filmmaking effort. Knock Knock, in a best case scenario, deserves one and a half star for its score, at the most possible optimistic evaluation.        

​Wagner           

Windsor Drive is a 2015 American psychological thriller film, and the directorial debut of filmmaker Natalie Bible’, starring Tommy O'Reilly, Samaire Armstrong, Mandy Musgrave and 
Anna Gurji.

Tommy O’Reilly plays River Miller, a self-centered, egotistic, disturbed and selfish aspiring actor, obsessed with his career. With a lot of aspirations, he moves to Hollywood, trying to boost his acting career, and in the middle of his artistic journey, stays with an eccentric couple, that feeds his delusions and desires to make it to the mainstream.

Being paranoid, delusional, erratic, violent, manipulative and out of touch with reality, the movie is more about of a journey into the main character’s disturbed mind, than an actual sequence of events. Lacking mostly the conventional narrative form, Windsor Drive is an extremely surrealistic movie, which plays very intelligently with logic, nuance, detail and the overall mindset of the main character’s psychological condition.

This movie is beyond excellence. Brilliantly executed, it takes you on into a troubled journey of a troubled mind, and every detail, every scene, every sentence said by a character juxtaposes the feelings behind River’s ulterior motives, so a lot of things in the movie are more grounded in personal interpretation rather than understanding a conventional storyline, since there is not a “story” here, not at least, in the general sense; all that we see are visual projections from the psychological set of the main character’s dark descent into insanity, as well as its consequences, which reveals him to be on the verge of a total mental breakdown.  The only thing in the movie near something “concrete” is the trace of a terrible trauma the main character may have suffered in a previous relationship, implying the possibility that a girlfriend or fiancé, somewhere in his past, may have died, which could be the source of him being near a mental collapse, since he is hardly able to overcome his problems. 

Being told in an unusual manner, you could see the movie as a story subjectively being told by the main character’s disturbed mind. Besides its actions, unfolds the psychotic descent of River Miller into the darkest side of his inner turmoils, all of this told through excellent use of surrealist devices, being the final result an incredible, superb and astonishing masterpiece, which any contemporaneous movie could hardly match. Besides, not despising the social ground and the ambience on which the story takes place, the movie also reveals the problem of how actors are disposable in Hollywood, exhibiting a symptom that is simply ignored by the entire industry, negligent and regardless of their general well-being, mental state and current situation in life, appearing eager to treat them more like animals in the verge of slaughter, than human beings that should be treated decently, with respect, education and dignity.

Certainly destined to become a cult classic, or to generate an entire genre by its own, Windsor Drive – with its majestic surrealism, daring and bold artistic expression, deep and dramatic performances, tense moments, achieving an underground strain of originality, mastering the use of classical devices, and yet having the ability to be innovative at the same time – certainly deserves a five stars rate. And I wish Natalie Bible’ a very long, successful and prolific career, that is for sure!    

  
Wagner